Measure In Love
by EvilRegalGleek
Summary: A oneshot from my verse in which Finn and Quinn are raising the baby girl together until Puck confesses in Silly Love Songs that he's her biological father, and Finn and Quinn officially break up in Blame It On The Alcohol before Quinn is killed in a car accident. Takes place on the one-year anniversary of Quinn's death.


"Burn in hell, dumbass," Finn muttered under his breath, deep in concentration, the video game controller clutched in his hand. His little girl was in the playpen behind the couch, close enough for him to glance back at her every few minutes but hidden from view of the violent video game. Okay, so maybe this wasn't his greatest parenting moment, even though Lily seemed reasonably content playing with her doll and toy xylophone. In his defense, he normally only put Lily in the playpen while he was doing homework, and there was no way he was going to be able to concentrate on homework today.

One year ago today, he'd been woken up by five words whispered by his mother that he was never going to forget.

"Finn? There's been an accident."

Then he'd rushed to the hospital with Lily in his arms. She'd drifted in and out of sleep most of the time. All the doctors had looked at him strangely, then sympathetically, when he'd said that he was the father of Quinn's child. The look of sadness on the receptionist's face alone when she saw Lily, like the situation was so sad she couldn't even bear to look at the baby, that alone should have told Finn what he was going to hear next. But he didn't want to hear it. It was only when the doctor started describing Quinn's injuries that Finn blurted out, "She's dead, isn't she?" Hard as it was to say, hearing it from this stranger's lips would have been even worse somehow. He was grateful his mother had come in moments later and had offered to be the one to identify Quinn's mangled body. Finn wanted himself and Lily to be able to remember her the way she was.

On the way home, Finn had asked his mother to bring him by Quinn's parents' house. He had still been holding Lily-her car seat had been destroyed in the car crash that killed Quinn-when he walked up to the front door. He knew from when he tried to call Mrs. Fabray earlier that only her husband would be home. There was no telling if he would even answer the door. But he had to try.

Approximately ten seconds after Finn rang the bell, Mr. Fabray opened the door in a bathrobe and slippers and rubbed his eyes. "What are you doing here, young man?"

"I came to tell you that…" Finn paused to brace himself for what he was about to say next.

"Is your ex-girlfriend okay?" asked Mr. Fabray, only mild curiosity in his voice.

"No," said Finn. "Quinn died in a car accident."

"Oh," said Mr. Fabray sympathetically. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Your _daughter_ died in a car accident," Finn said, slightly louder. No response. "Is your wife home yet?"

"No. Her meeting is running late."

"Will she be willing to make Quinn's funeral arrangements or not?" asked Finn. Lily made a quiet noise in her sleep.

"She might be willing to do that for you. I'll ask her."

Finn tightened his jaw. He'd had enough of this. "I'm sorry for _your _loss." "She might be willing to do that for _you_." _This man's daughter was dead_. How was he still acting like Finn was the only one who should care?

But when Finn looked into the older man's eyes, he saw one unshed tear in the corner of his left eye. Just one. And then Finn realized how quickly Mr. Fabray had answered the door considering that the bedrooms were upstairs and he'd supposedly been asleep when Finn showed up.

"You can stop pretending you don't care," said Finn calmly. "I know you were waiting for me." Then Finn wordlessly walked back to his car.

The next few days passed in a blur. Mrs. Fabray finally standing up to her husband at Quinn's funeral. Mrs. Pillsbury insisting that he take a few days off to spend with Lily. Brittany and Santana making out at the front of the classroom after singing some song-what the hell was that about anyway?

Finn's mind was brought back to the present, and the dreaded Game Over screen popped up. Seriously? He was only on level three. He threw the game controller at the armchair in frustration. He heard Lily snort and glanced back and realized she'd fallen asleep. He went and scooped her up and brought her down the hallway past the spare room where his stepbrother and current girlfriend were watching some musical on the TV. Finn glanced just long enough to wonder why one of the women on the screen looked like a dead ringer for Rachel's mom before ducking into the bedroom he still shared with Lily. A bunch of Quinn's things were still there in boxes. He'd offered them to Mrs. Fabray, but she'd wanted him to save them for Lily and even gave him some extra things for her on top of it.

Finn gently set Lily down in her crib. Hanging above it was a photo of him, Quinn, and Lily on the day that Lily was born. He'd remembered being almost too nervous to step into the delivery room Quinn was rushed into and ducking into a hallway apart from the rest of the New Directions just to calm down for a moment. That was where Mercedes had found him and told him in no uncertain terms that he was _going_ to be in the room when Lily was born, and he was _going_ to do it without fainting or freaking out or in any way making the focus about him when Quinn was the one who was, as Mercedes put it, "Laying in a hospital bed being forced to push something the size of a god damned watermelon through something the size of a strawberry." Then she'd grabbed him and led him back to the delivery room. On the way Puck had asked if he could go in too and been met with a disgusted look from Finn and a death stare from Mercedes. Now Finn realized _why_ he'd wanted to be there. Not that it mattered. Puck wasn't her father anymore.

Finn and Mercedes had stood on either side of Quinn's bed holding her hands while she screamed and eventually begged for painkillers, which she couldn't have because her water was already broken and it was too late. After a certain point, Finn hadn't known what was more difficult, watching his girlfriend scream in pain and not be able to do anything about it, or the fact that he was about to become partly responsible for another human being's life for the next eighteen years. And then out came Lily, and suddenly, it felt like the world stopped. His and Quinn's hands were still clamped around each other, but all either of them could look at was the perfect little human being the nurse was carrying away to weigh and measure. The hospital staff doing things to Quinn and the baby faded into the background. All either of them saw was the sweet baby's face. One of the nurses jotted down the baby's measurements, and another one was putting a diaper on her and wrapping her in a pink blanket. Finn and Quinn looked at each other, and she released his hand and patted his arm, and both of them knew what she wanted him to do. He walked over to the redheaded nurse carrying his daughter and held out his arms. She handed him the fussy newborn. He was a little afraid for a moment that he was going to drop or break her, but once she was in his arms he realized he never would. He'd brought her back over to Quinn, who looked up at him with an exhausted but beautiful smile.

"Sing," Quinn whispered. Finn wondered why she wanted him to sing for a second, then realized that she wanted him to sing to the baby. He carefully brought her up to his shoulder the way Quinn had made him practice with her old dolls and started to quietly sing the first thing that came to mind.

_"Isn't she lovely  
Isn't she wonderful  
Isn't she precious  
Less than one minute old  
I never thought through love we'd be  
Making one as lovely as she  
But isn't she lovely made from love"_

One again, Finn's mind was brought back to the present by the sound of Kurt and Rachel singing in the next room. They must be doing that annoying thing that he and Blaine both made fun of where they watched a musical together and then sang all the songs from it as duets. He stepped out and closed the door behind him quietly, then moved to ask them to go down to the basement to sing so that they wouldn't wake Lily up. But right outside the cracked door to the spare room, he froze again when his eyes landed on a picture of himself and Quinn that was hung up in the hallway. She was in a buttery yellow sundress and casually sitting on his lap with her arms draped around his shoulders. Finn's eyes were locked on the picture as Kurt and Rachel's voices drifted into the hallway.

_"In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights  
In cups of coffee  
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife  
In five hundred twenty-five thousand  
Six hundred minutes  
How do you measure  
A year in the life?  
How about love?  
How about love?  
How about love? Measure in love  
Seasons of love, seasons of love"_

Finn tore his eyes from the picture and stepped towards the door when Rachel began singing the next part as a solo.

_"Five hundred twenty-five thousand  
Six hundred minutes  
Five hundred twenty-five thousand  
Journeys to plan  
Five hundred twenty-five thousand_  
_Six hundred minutes_  
_How do you measure the life_  
_Of a woman or a man?"_

Then back to Kurt

_"In truths that she learned  
Or in times that he cried  
In bridges he burned  
Or the way that she died"_

"Enough!" Finn finally snapped, startling the two singers. "Just stop, okay?"

Kurt and Rachel blinked. "Did we wake up the baby?" asked Rachel after a moment.

"Not yet," said Finn.

"We'll go sing somewhere else," said Kurt. "Sorry, Finn."

Finn was slightly annoyed as he watched Kurt and Rachel head downstairs to the basement with all their things. It wasn't like either of them to be insensitive. Especially not Kurt. He could understand Rachel being hesitant to bring up his ex-girlfriend's death, but not Kurt. He'd known and liked Quinn. And both Kurt and Rachel were at least usually nicer to him than usual when they realized he was upset. Then he realized that they must not realize what day it was. Neither did his mom or Burt, because they definitely would have said something. Why was it that he was the only person who had to remember?

His eyes landed on the photograph again, and he thought about the day it was taken. Lily had been four months old at the time, and for the first time since she was born, they'd left her with his parents for a few hours to go hang out with their friends together. This picture had been taken at the park, where they'd hung out before going to eat at Breadstix. Quinn had eaten seven breadsticks and a bowl of spaghetti and been wearing blue sandals. Why the hell did Finn have to remember stuff like that?

But he already knew the answer. This day was always going to be worse for him than for his friends even if they did remember, and he would always have the clearest memories of Quinn, because no one and nothing was ever going to change the fact that he had still been in love with her when she died.


End file.
